Jim Matheson

General Partner

Flagship Ventures

Jim Matheson joined Flagship Ventures in 2000 and focuses on creating, funding and building new ventures in the sustainability, clean technology and special technologies (e.g. nanotechnology, materials and technology systems) arenas. Jim earned an MBA from The Harvard Business School, a Bachelor of Science (with honors) from the United States Naval Academy and retired in 2008 as a Commander in the US Naval Reserves.

Jim has over 20 years of technology and leadership experience across a variety of organizations and roles designing, engineering and deploying sophisticated technology platforms. He formerly served as a Navy F-14 & FA-18 pilot including duties flying over 200 combat missions from an aircraft carrier, as a TOPGUN Instructor and leading the Navy’s Adversary Program. He also gained broad experience in emerging aircraft & weapons system design, testing and procurement, and was deeply involved in many of the military’s IT modernization initiatives.

Jim serves on the boards of Flagship portfolio companies Advanced Electron Beams, Black Duck Software, Frontier Energy, Mascoma,, Midori, Novomer and Oasys Water and is Chairman of the Board of Genstruct and Ze-gen. He was previously a director of e-Dialog (acquired by GSI Commerce), Yantra (acquired by Sterling Commerce / SBC) and Flamenco Networks (acquired by SOA Software). Jim has also spearheaded Flagship’s role as the Department of Energy’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Jim is on the Boards of a New York-based hedge fund Black Horse Capital, the National Board of the Clean Tech Open, the New England Clean Energy Council, the Center for Women & Enterprise, and Common Impact (a non-profit providing business services to other non-profits), and is actively involved in numerous entrepreneurial and venture capital organizations including the Department of Energy's Biomass Technical Advisory Committee, CLF (Conservation Law Foundation) Ventures, the MA Clean Energy Center, the MIT Enterprise Forum, the Deshpande Center, and The Service Academy Business Network.